More than two months after the end of the Tham Luang cave rescue operation to pluck 13 Wild Boar boys and their football coach to safety, Dr Park Loharnchun, a medical doctor and a member of the Navy SEAL which played crucial role in the rescue mission, broke his silence about his “close shave with death” in the flooded cave.
“It was a crammed tunnel which was fully flooded and no space to emerge out of the water,” he said in his Facebook post, adding he got stuck in the tunnel and as he tried to free himself, the breathing tube was removed from his mouth and the tube tangled with his body and the tunnel.
Dr Park said he also lost hold of the guiding rope. “I could not see anything.
But at the very moment, a thought flashed in my head – will I die here – and the images of my wife and children flashed
before me.” The Navy SEAL diver said he then thought about the sacred beings and his former teachers until he regained his composure.
He recalled that as he tried to find his breathing tube, all the images kept flashing in his mind until he started to calm down and felt
relaxed.
“They were all the images of the good deeds I did. If I were to leave this world, I would feel relieved toward the destination that I was bound to go.” Dr Park and three other Navy SEAL members were with the last group of Wild Boar team inside the flooded cave. He was the last to get out of the cave.
